


i will soften every edge

by nagia



Series: O Tower Not Ivory [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Implied Trespasser Spoilers, Kid Fic, Other, Relationship Only Implied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:14:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Trespasser vignettes.  Life goes on.  Sometimes, it's even good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. some nights i stay up; ostwick, 9:47 dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Well, somebody on r/CullenMancers requested it, so. Might as well add it here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the cat's away, the mice will... tearfully refuse to sleep?

The truth of it is: he was never actually going to be the disciplinarian of the household, not outside of last resort. It's all well and good, when the person he's shouting at is a too-scrawny idiot who needs to learn to use his shield if he doesn't want to bloody  _die_. Very different — and much harder — to be firm with a toddler with a riot of dark curls and huge brown eyes.

Cullen's honestly not sure Mireille didn't get her trouble sleeping from him. He's never much been one to lie abed when there's something to be done, and there's  _always_  something to be done. There was in Skyhold, and there still is in Ostwick: there's always someone at the clinic who needs his help, or paperwork to be done. Or a crying toddler who misses her mother.

He rubs his hand along the back of her head and holds her to his chest, swaying them both while he makes soothing shush noises and murmurs useless platitudes. "I know, Mia. I know you miss her."

He doubts his words mean much to her, but his voice seems to lull her. His touch probably helps, and the swaying. Though when her sobs only soften into sharp little whines, with the occasional hiccough, Cullen gives up and clicks his tongue twice.

"Pup, door," he says, and after a moment, Pup is kind enough to heave himself from the rug by the window and nudge the nursery's door open with his head. Pup hates the sound of Mireille's crying easily as much as Cullen hates that his daughter is so distressed.

Cullen spends more than a quarter of an hour bouncing Mireille on his hip, still rubbing her back and the back of her head, and going up and down the stairs. Why, exactly, the act of walking up and down stairs pleases her so, he's not sure he'll ever understand. And when she finally rests her head against his shoulder and draws in deep breaths for her tiny, baby snores, Cullen throws his head back and sighs.

He's not fool enough to try to put her back in the nursery. No, he trudges wearily up the stairs and opens the master suite's door. He'd always worried, in the beginning, that he would lash out in his sleep. Now, he's learned to sleep on his back, and let her sleep on his chest.

Pup is also kind enough to pull Cullen's boots off, once Cullen has them unlaced. With that, and without ceremony, he collapses backward onto the bed, and prays Mireille doesn't wake until morn. He certainly doesn't intend to.


	2. maker's breath; ostwick, 9:45 dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's been ill off and on this past season. Now he knows why.

He never quite knew what woke him. Perhaps something as simple as one of Ostwick's constant sea breezes changing direction, coming down from the hills to carry the scent of canal water and sheep into their bedchamber. Perhaps it was Pup shifting himself at the foot of the bed, chasing something in his sleep.

As he came awake, he stilled himself and listened intently for anything amiss. Outside, he could hear the water slap-slap-slapping against the sides of the buildings on their block. Within, he heard only Pup's sleepy snortings and, if he listened very closely, Heloise breathing.

She wasn't asleep, he realized. Her breaths were a touch too quick, too light. Not quite loud enough.

"What's wrong?"

Cullen didn't bother lighting a candle. He just sat up and reached one hand out for the sword hanging by his side of the bed. He'd driven a peg into the wall the first night they'd furnished the bedchamber, long practice divining where best to place it so he could arm himself in a trice.

His movements roused Pup, who jumped down from the bed and went to the door. He didn't scratch at it or growl. No one new was in the house, then. There came a soft thumping sound, as if Pup was headbutting the doorframe, which meant that he needed to be let out.

"Heloise?" Cullen asked again, even as he slipped over the side of the bed, putting his feet down into his boots. He leaned over to tug at the laces, jerking them to tighten the leather, then tying them in a hasty knot. "Hel, I know you're awake. Is it your stomach again?"

She'd been ill on and off this past season. Cullen had been half convinced it was an ague carried by the canals, but Hel had insisted it couldn't be. For one, she'd grown up here, and there was no reason for the city to make her, the native, sick, without also felling him. For another, none of the five fevers of the Ostwick canals left one with dark circles under their eyes or made their stomachs heave all the day and night. 

She had, at least, usually stopped short of sicking up, but Cullen could well understand her oft-expressed thought that she'd surely feel better if only she could finish it. Then again, for some reason or another, mages rarely threw up. No matter how much their stomachs roiled.

Very, very quietly, Hel said, "I think I know why I've been so ill these last few months."

Cullen went stiff where he sat, faint chills sweeping along his arms and neck. "Hel?"

"I haven't had my courses in four months," she said, a little louder.

Thinking back was a reflex. In three years, he hadn't really noticed her monthly courses. Their lives had kept them so busy that one or both of them had been likely to be out of Skyhold of a night, and if they had ever kept her to her bed, she'd well hidden the cause. That it hadn't intruded on their lives since moving to Ostwick seemed...

It wasn't that he'd forgotten such cycles existed. But they had been so well-hidden for the last three years that he hadn't even noticed the lack since sharing a much closer space.

"Maker's breath," he said. 

Pup, evidently tired of bumping his head, reared up and nudged the door handle, then pushed his way out and into the hall. Claws clicked on the wooden floor, receding from their bedchamber down the hallway and then down the stairs.

Well, the dog could take care of himself for a moment. Cullen was still trying to face down the idea that he and Hel had gone and done something as foolish, as terrifying, as wonderful as creating life. Was his heart beating faster out of fear? Joy? He was lightheaded with... something. Probably a lot of somethings. 

He rolled over in bed and pulled Hel into his arms.

"Maker's breath, we're going to be parents," he said against her cheek. He pressed a kiss there, high on her high cheekbone.


End file.
